World: Involution

"We are chained, humiliated, sick with fear; we are at our lowest
ebb." With these words, France's existentialist philosopher and
left-wing propagandist, Jean-Paul Sartre, donned the mantle of doom for
his countrymen.* Describing the much-discussed crisis of conscience
confronting France as a result of the Algerian war, Sartre coined a new
expression, "involution" a tragic process by which the
former colonizers adopt the savagery of the native lands they once
colonized.

Tossing aside the vast services to mankind that enlightened colonialism
has performed, Sartre suggested that France had sown the wind and...